


Chill and Thaw

by orphan_account



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-10-31 23:38:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10909800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In which Marinette becomes cold, her blazing heart buried under soulless ice. A cat comes and warms her up again.





	1. Chill

**Author's Note:**

> Marinette is cold.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette grows cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladybugs are hard to _spot_ on the ground.

It had started with rejection- Adrian Agreste gently lets her down when she confesses the love she feels for him, and the subsequent ask far a date (but she is still shattered, and no Cat in shining leather can save her, either). She acted like she's fine, but underneath the emotional barricade, a maelstrom of molten hurt and confusion raged. She didn't know what she did wrong, or if she said something offensive to him once, or whatever she did to hurt him (even though he was head over heels for Ladybug, and she couldn't fucking see it herself). The bottom of her heart begins to freeze, ice chips forming in her soul.

Next is Chloe, her bitchy attitude and obnoxious laughter stabbing through Marinette's paper skin and stirring up the hornet's nest of anger that once lie dormant in her heart. The insults escalate in both hurt and frequency, and the maelstrom in Marinette's chest roars with burning rage, the cocktail of emotion tearing her apart at the seams. She stops talking to Alya, Nino, and even Adrien. At night, her parents hear her scream in rage, throwing things, before breaking down into a sobbing mess. They can tell that her smiles are fake because they have never reached her eyes. A quarter of her heart is consumed by creeping cold, and she stops feeling joy (it wasn't like she had much use for it anymore, though: she was happy to be without it).

As Ladybug, it's Volpina who hurts her emotionally, casually tossing out poisonous words and cruel grins, kicking her down when she barely has the energy to get back up. The illusions she makes go from emotionally life-threatening to absolutely lethal, gushing holes in her fragile heart, nearly bringing her to tears several times in a fight. (She didn't need a fucking reminder that Adrien doesn't love her, or that he never will, but she gets one anyways, and her blood turns to steam in her veins.) The lucky charm created for the fight is a rope, and Ladybug uses it to choke Volpina until she passes out from oxygen deprivation. A third of Marinette's soul is coated in icy armor, the rest of it covered in a rapidly-thickening layer of permafrost.

Chat Noir is terrified of the new Ladybug, who has to be dragged away from fights, who needs to be held down after purifications so she doesn't hurt the Akuma-free victims. Simultaneously, Adrien is ignorant of the once-sweet Marinette, who built an emotional fortress around herself, rarely talking and rarer still, her soft, brilliant smiles. Alya and Marinette still excel together, cranking out papers and projects like clockwork. Marinette's heart is icing over, albeit much slower with Alya around. It is half-frozen, and her rage now burns cold. Empty stares send shivers down spines and stab into the soul (Alya gets pictures for her photography class, and is given high marks for perfectly capturing the expression).

Marinette slogs through classes day after day, dark bags under her eyes. The occasional insult from Chloe or Lila or anyone else ends in Alya's worried glances in her direction and a little more apathy. Most days, she comes home, gives her parents help around the bakery, and then goes to her room and lays awake, staring at the ceiling. Sleep evades her, and any she gets is filled with looming shadows, cruel laughter, and screaming. After one too many of these nights, her heart is frosted over completely. That day at school, Chloe makes a joke at her expense and is later 'rewarded' by being pushed down five flights of stairs, to the delight of Marinette (nobody knows but her, and Chloe has a concussion that makes her forget).

When she comes home her smile is infectious, and her parents unknowingly laugh with her at the thought of Chloe tumbling down stairs like a ragdoll (if they knew, they'd be shocked, and then forget about it for her sake, because their daughter means more than a bully). It is a good day for Marinette, and for her family as well. Her smiles were few and far between, so any was a good sign to them. Chloe stays in the hospital for a few months, until both her legs, an arm, five ribs, and the concussion heal (afterwards, she's much more humble, and can't remember why).

Ladybug disappears from Paris, to the consfusion of Parisians everywhere. Chat Noir decides to visit the bakery she goes to almost religiously. It is the home of Marinette, the classmate he declined a date with. Plagg simply tells him to go say hi as Chat Noir, as Adrien would probably screw it all up (again).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Puns.
> 
> Leave a comment if you'd like.


	2. Thaw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A good cat warms her up. Or tries to anyways.
> 
>  
> 
> (What do you call a disaster involving a cat kwami and his pet human?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WhAT IS THIS CHICANERY WIZARD
> 
> ceaSE THE TEARS IMMEDIATELY 
> 
> uWu

Marinette heard a knock at her balcony- either a very suspicious or very confusing occurrence. Three people could have done that- a Akumatized villain, Tikki, who was accidentally locked out, or Chat Noir, the leather enthusiast. When she got up to open the door, she looked out, saw Tikki hiding in a potted plant and Chat Noir fighting an Akumatized villain, and shut the door. 'Not in my house, not my problem', she thought. There was another knock at the door, and she opened it, Tikki floating in, bumping into her face, and disappearing into her handbag on her desk. "You're Marinette, right?" She slowly turned around to see Chat Noir leaning casually against the doorframe, eyes gleaming with a mixture of trepidation and something she couldn't quite place. He was also blushing, which was probably from exhaustion (he _did_ just fight an Akuma, after all).

"Your house is kinda cute, huh?" She just stares with glassy eyes, her eyebrows poised in the perfect face of 'unimpressed and underwhelmed'. She shoves him out onto her balcony and closes the door. Tikki looks to her worriedly, exclaiming, "Marinette! You can't just push people out of doorways and then close the door!" She walks over to her bed, climbs into it, sits up, and curls her knees towards her chest, compacting herself and pulling her Ladybug-patterned hoodie over her face, trying to hide the wisp of emotions from Tikki and the world. The door opens again, and she hears his footsteps. She just wants him to go away.

Marinette looks _wrong_ curled up like this, he thinks. Before, when the two had talked, she was bubbly and practically a ball of sunshine. All that is in her now is the waning light of a crescent moon. She is so _vulnerable_ like this, and it makes him sick to his stomach. He wishes Ladybug was here to cheer the girl up, he wants to run, to hide, to sob over this broken girl whose emotions have been locked away. He takes a tentative step towards her and reaches out, hand almost on her knee, when he hears the soft crying. She looks up at him, her eyes flooded with some heady mix of sorrow and pain, tears streaming down her face. He immediately joins her on the bed and pulls her into a protective hug.

'Chat Noir's hugs are nice,' she thinks, and snuggles closer into the hero's side, wrapping her arms around his chest. The maelstrom in her chest rages to life, and the ice around her heart begins to thaw. She starts crying, her loud, choking sobs echoing through the room, earning her mumbled reassurances that she was safe, she was ok, and he quietly begged her 'don't cry, I hate it when you cry'. She still sobbed on anyways, twin waterfalls flowing onto his costume. He didn't feel the tears through his armor, and she couldn't feel him begin to cry, either.

The crying ends quickly, and Marinette retreats back behind her emotional barricade, which is a little softer now. She blushes softly and smiles, thinking 'This is so embarrassing. I just cried all over Chat Noir.' He stares at her numbly, some tears still running down his face, and she brushes them away with delicate fingers. "Don't cry, _chaton_." His eyes go wide, and he scoots closer to her. She gently guides him to lay his head against her chest, and he relaxes instantly. She gets the strange idea to scratch behind his ears, and giggles softly when he lets out a loud purr. He turns an alarming shade of scarlet when he realizes it was _him_ that created the noise. The purrs get louder as she continues to scratch behind his ears, and he falls asleep in her arms, purring loudly. She falls asleep soon afterwards.

Sabine comes up to check on her, and is surprised by the sight of the two cuddling, Chat Noir's face rested against her daughter's stomach, purring loudly, her hands in his hair. Marinette seems calmer, somehow, and Sabine smiles, before returning to the bakery to assist her husband in whatever he's gotten up to this time. Plagg and Tikki meet under the bed and share stories like old friends would (and he's still as smug as she remembers). At home, Gabriel Agreste loses his temper over the fact his son has disappeared (again) without notifying Nathalie or Gorilla.

The pair later wake rested, Marinette having had better rest than she's had in months. Maybe with her _chaton_ by her side, things could get better. She supposed that time would have to tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Cataclysm.)
> 
>  
> 
> Comment if you'd like.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I'm good for awhile.


End file.
